Description

A local mining clerk in the swedish town Falun, Gisle Jacobson, published the text, entitled 'Ett litet Tidhfördriff' (A small pastime) in 1613. The booklet describes a ritualized dice game used by the miners at Stora Kopparberg in order to help the miners to make decisions in connection with the organization of this hazardous work.

The reader shall throw three dice, and then look for the same score in the booklet. Three six-sided dice, numbered from one to six, give a total of 56 different combinations if you throw all three simultaneously. Consequently, the text itself consists of 56 rhymed stanzas, combined with schematic pictures of three dice that are linked to all possible combinations. Every poem gives the miner different rules for living and moral advice as an answer to a wish made before he threw the dice.

Those who manage to score highest may be first in the pair line* and have an advantage over the others, who must wait further down the pair line. But the one coming last will be stuck there because of his low and unlucky throw. This may be due to a three, four and six on the dice. Those who come first are likely to get copper, and those who are last get just rocks.

• Pair line = The term was used to denote the order in which the mining teams took turns to break ore in the mine.

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